StarStuff
by ShadesOfMauve
Summary: Deleted scenes from my ongoing slowmance 'A Star to Steer Her By.' Possibly amusing as drabbles/short-fic on their own, and certainly of interest to rabid fans of aStShB - all three of you.
1. Head Trauma

"The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff." - C. Sagan

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><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

This is a selection of out-takes from my longer fic, _A Star to Steer Her By_. Since I've been posting episodically and I don't naturally write in chronological order, some scenes I like never found their home in _Star_ (usually because of pacing or chapter length issues). I'm planning on an a giant edit/rewrite at the end, and maybe I'll find the right place for them, but until then, anything here is absolutely a part of my _Star_ canon - it just happened off-screen.

I won't post anything that will spoil my own story, of course, so anything that appears here happened chapters and chapters ago.

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><p><em>Shepard receives a bit of head-trauma while on a mission...<em>

Worried, Joker called Mercer to the helm and went to the medbay.

Chakwas was bent over Shepard, who was conscious enough to be actively interfering in her own treatment. The doctor pinned one arm with her off hand and leaned in to check the commander's eyes, only to find them tightly squeezed shut.

"Damn it, Shepard, open up."

The patient shook her head and tried to bury her face in the examining table.

Chakwas looked up at him, frustrated. "Head injuries. She's not all there, yet. It's like arguing with a child. I'd ask you to hold her but that wouldn't be wise. Could you grab someone to help? Tali'd be best."

"Sure, but," he looked at Shepard's scrunched up eyes, "I think it's just the glare." He whipped off his hat and held it between her face and the bright lights of the med bay, and she immediately settled down.

Chakwas heaved a sigh of relief. "You're very observant, Jeff. Thank you."

The commander's head lolled toward him and she blinked stupidly. "You have _hair_."

_Right, concussion_. "It's a mammal thing." He raked his fingers through it unconsciously and turned to Chakwas. "Will it be okay, doc?"

Chakwas looked at him with concern. "It's hard to tell, now. Take a comb and call me in the morning."

"I _meant_ her head."

_"_Oh, _that_'ll be fine_."_


	2. Friend with batteries

_I really wanted this scene to make it in, to give Mercer a little more time and show off Rhi Shepard's special brand of practicality, but it never quite fit. Of course, back at the beginning I was trying to keep my chapters around 3000 words, a goal I've long since given up!_

Shepard was used to working on a crowded ship, where every task had to be accomplished against the background noise of a functioning crew. The calm of her cabin was itself distracting. It didn't help that she was trying to focus on Mordin's latest blast of collector data. He wrote almost like he spoke, and if he remembered that he was writing for a marine and not a fellow scientist he certainly didn't show it.

The subject matter wasn't something you wanted to read without a lot of reassuring, live human voices around, either. She shoved the data pad in her fatigue pocket and went down to the crew deck, stopping off in the empty mess to heat two mugs of hot-chocolate.

Chakwas looked up as the med-bay doors opened.

"I've been studying this stuff from Mordin and I need a change of scenery." Shepard lifted one mug. "I brought bribes."

The doctor smiled. "Any time, Commander." She gratefully accepted the steaming mug.

"Mmm... more goodies from the Citadel, I assume?"

"Figured you wouldn't want tea this late." The doctor couldn't resist chocolate.

"Make yourself at home."

Rhi snagged a chair, claimed an out-of-the-way corner by the AI core, and settled down to read. With the small sounds of Chakwas at her terminal and the muted chatter of crew on break her wandering mind was finally able to settle on the task at hand.

She was deep in the _Normandy'_s data banks, finding the definition of another important-yet-obscure scientific term Mordin had neglected to explain, when the med lab door slid open. She kept on with her reading, keeping half an ear out in case the issue was a personal one and she should leave.

"Can I help you, Mercer?"

"I hope so, doc. I'm just a _mess,_ lately. I wanted to be on this mission, but I'm stressed. It's urgent, then it's not, now we're flying around in circles, and everyone thinks we're going to _die_... "

Shepard shifted, loudly, so that the junior pilot would know she was there. The poor kid jumped six inches. "Oh, C-commander, I..."

She caught the younger woman's eye and leaned across the table, smiling reassuringly. "It's okay to be nervous, Mercer, I'm not going to think any less of you for it. Waiting is always the hardest part. It'd be easier to charge in without a clue. But all this waiting, all the side trips... it's prep, Mercer, and we'll all be stronger for it. We're taking our time for a reason. When it comes down to the wire _we won't die_."

"Yes, Commander."

"You don't have to agree with me. I'll be right whether you do or not." Rhi laughed. "How long have you been with Cerberus?"

"Just, just over a year..."

"And you weren't any kind of military before. Look, things are still twitchy, now. People haven't worked out their places. Give it some time, and it will start to be a real team. Not just the ass-kicking squad, the flight crew too." She detested the distrustful nature all the Cerberus operatives ended up with, and hated that it seeped down to their crew. _My ship will _not _be like that. _"Now, I'll get out of your way so you can talk with the doc." She started to gather up her things.

"No, really, it's okay, Commander. You, uh, heard what I was going to tell her anyway."

"If you're sure, Mercer." She settled back into her chair and turned her focus back to the datapad, half-aware of Chakwas calmly giving advice on making connections with fellow crew and getting enough exercise.

"It's important to take care of yourself, especially on missions such as this, dear. I expect to have to chide the marines about it, one always has to, but you'll be more sensible, yes? Good. Now, one other thing. I'm sure you're already prepared, but just in case, have a glance over this datapad and mark anything you want."

Rhi looked up at the young woman's shocked gasp and raised one eyebrow in Chakwas' direction.

The doctor shrugged, a small, amused smile on her face. "Don't worry, it won't show up on the Cerberus expense account... in any form you'd recognize. I'm very discreet."

"But, but, _doctor_," Mercer choked out. "This, these... "

"Are a perfectly effective method of stress-relief," the doctor said matter-of-factly.

The pilot shot a terrified, embarrassed look at her commander.

"You act like this is _normal!_"

Shepard shook her head. The relief pilot was competent, certainly – not as good as Joker, but that was an impossible standard – but she seemed so damn young. She would rather they have older hands on this mission, not for the mission's sake, but for the crew's.

"It _is _normal, Mercer. You from one of those pocket religious colonies or something?" The alliance tried to keep their official colonization efforts balanced in terms of politics and religion; polarization and isolation were a dangerous mix. But extremists always found a way.

"No, it's... Commander, no one else is... I mean, maybe the guys, but..."

Chakwas eyes twinkled. "_Maybe_ the men? Ha."

Shepard barked a laugh. "Oh, kid, _everyone_ 'is'. You're on a ship in space with a small crew; relationships are complicated even when they're not expressly forbidden, and everyone's more than a bit anxious. When they're not anxious, they're bored. _That's_ military normal." _Para-military. Terrorists. Whatever_. She shook her head. "Back in the marines I never could figure out why they didn't just issue 'em in alliance blue with your ship-suit. It'd save everyone a lot of hassle. Looks like Cerberus isn't any more enlightened, in that."

Chakwas met her eye with a long suffering look. "It _is_ run by a man."

"Blessed by nature with slightly less dependence on batteries," Shepard agreed.

Mercer's appalled expression was a thing of beauty. Rhi wished she had a camera. She made a show of shifting her attention back to her reading, to save the pilot further embarrassment.

The junior pilot exchanged a few more flustered words with Chakwas, then fled the sickbay. The doctor murmured "So sheltered..." as the door shut behind her. Shepard shook her head in agreement, then glanced up.

"Hey, doc? Don't put that pad away. Seems my entire kit went down with the first _Normandy_."_  
><em>Chakwas tossed it in her direction and they both bent back to their work.


	3. Chocolate Cake

_This scene occurred to me a few weeks ago, way past when it would have been useful in the fic, but it wanted to be written and lead directly to a rather juicier scene later, so I figured I'd toss it up here._

Joker was leaning on the mess hall counter with Donnelly, eyes glued on mess sergeant Gardener – or rather, the mixing bowl in front of him. The sound of the automatic mixer drowned out the normal sounds of the crew deck, and he didn't realize the commander was there until he heard her voice by his ear.

"What _are_ you doing?" She sounded confused.

"Gardner," he gestured, "Is giving the third degree to a helpless infant cake. We," he nodded to Donnelly, "are harassing Gardner until he lets us lick the cake batter from the beater."

"You are _both_ children," Gabby said.

"They're both pains in the ass," grumbled Gardner.

"We'll go away just as soon as we got what we came for, man," Donnelly promised.

Gardner scowled at them, but he still passed the batter-laden beaters across. "There. Don't say I never did anything for you."

"You're a ver-it-able angel among men, and only a minor demon among chefs, oh great one," Donnely said, and immediately got batter on his nose.

Joker looked at the commander, hoping to see a hint of that elusive half-grin. She looked confused.

"C'mon, commander! Inner child and all that. Didn't you get the cake mixers when you were a kid?"

"No." The slight furrow in her brow eased as her look of mild confusion turned into a look of fake misery worthy of a golden retriever. "No."

Donnelly took one glance at the soulful look and said "Not a chance. You've already got my best scotch."

Joker couldn't resist so easily. He knew she was playing with them; that expression was as out-of-place on her face as a salarian at a strip joint. "Aw, damn it. Okay." Defeated, he hung his head and handed her the beater. "It's not _fair_."

He kept watching out of the corner of his eye, though, so he saw the moment her face lit up like a kid, mask cracking into a real smile for a split second. Getting that reaction was worth every missed taste of chocolate.

Besides, he'd get a slice of cake anyway.

And maybe the bowl.

He straightened up and tossed a careless grin in her direction, surprised to see that she was watching for it instead of devouring her unfairly won spoils.

As soon as she saw he was watching she switched her full attention the treat in front of her, eyeing it carefully from all angles. _Probably trying to devise a strategy that doesn't end with batter on her nose like Donnelly_. A play-pout was one thing, but he didn't think for a moment that commander Shepard was going to let herself end up with chocolate cake batter all over her face in the middle of the mess hall. She'd be trying to figure out some dignified way of dealing with –

Still making a show of keeping her entire attention on the task at hand, Shepard slowly stuck her tongue out between black-painted lips and carefully licked the beater, bottom to top. Slowly. When she curled her tongue back, pink tip covered in chocolate batter, her eyes drifted close in a look of absolute bliss. "Mmmm."

Joker shut his mouth so fast he almost bit his tongue, turning quickly so she couldn't see his face – though maybe his face wasn't what he should be concerned about. _Does she have any idea how f__ric__king sexy that was?_ His face was flushed, his pants uncomfortably tight, he was in the public mess and she was his _superior officer_. "Really, really not fair," he breathed. He glanced up at Donnelly, looking for sympathy or mental ice-water-down-the-pants, he wasn't sure, but the other man apparently hadn't noticed.

"Thanks, Joker," Shepard drawled, and walked away, holding the beater aloft like a trophy. Watching her go did nothing to reduce the ache in his groin. He shut his eyes and tried to think about his mother. Or baseball. Anything but Shepard's tongue, really.

It was a lost cause.


	4. Chocolate Cake, revisited

_The (M rated) scene that eventually follows 'Chocolate Cake.'_

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><p>Joker's arm was draped across her waist, the rest of him fitted to the curve of her body. She could just feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. <em>This is nice<em>.

She was drifting off when he murmured her name.

"Rhi..."

"Mmm?"  
>"There's something I have to know."<p>

She shifted in his arms at the serious tone of his voice, but she couldn't turn enough to see his face. "What?"

"Did you _really_ never get to lick the cake-beaters when you were a kid?"

"Mmm." She chuckled sleepily, "You always ask the really deep questions right before bed?"

He must not have been entirely awake either, because he mumbled "Bed is _now_," into her hair and fell silent for long enough she thought maybe he was asleep. Finally he asked "None of your foster-parents ever gave you a treat? Ever? Or did none of 'em cook, or..." he squeezed her tighter as he said it. He sounded worried.

She smiled into the dark. _We're going to face genocidal bug-people and you're concerned about my childhood. Oh, Joker. You are far too sweet, even if you don't want anyone to know it. _This time, at least, she could reassure him. "No, no cake beaters. One of my foster-dads used to give me cake batter all the time, but he was real traditional in the kitchen. No electric mixer. He used a spoon." She pulled his hand up and planted a kiss on the palm.

"You're kidding. You lied to get my cake batter!" He tried to sound upset, but she could feel the laughter where he pressed against her.

"Of course not." She tried to sound indignant. "I was just... very specific about my criteria. Anyway," she pulled his hand up towards her mouth again, "I didn't really want the cake batter. I just wanted to see how you'd react to..." she let her words trail off as she slowly licked one of his fingers, circling her tongue around the knuckle before drawing it all the way into her mouth.

This time she could _feel_ his reaction, in the shuddering breath on her neck, the growing hardness pressing at her. It woke an answering shiver in her.

He pressed still closer, and she kept playing with his hand, contemplating options. Make good on the rather explicit promise of her current activity - she captured a different finger, barely biting the end, and he twitched against her back delightfully - or explore the strategic advantages of her current position? All she'd have to do was shift a little, and he'd be right where they both wanted him.

God damn decisions.

_Or both. Have my cake and eat it, too?_ _Or the cake batter and the cake, too?_ Or... fuck it. She released his hand, rolled over, and slithered down beneath the sheets.


End file.
